2017

María Cañas (Sevilla, 1972)

“Virgin Terrorist of Archives, arsonist of minds and videopath, audiovisual, wild and mediatic iconoclast…”, is how she defines herself in her biography, María Cañas practices a videoguerrilla that she introduces into the topics and genres to make them explode. Her façade is “laughing presence”: humour in all shades and the actions of the masses connected like an insurgence strategy or, at least, spiritual survival. She directs Animalario TV Producciones, a creative space devoted to the recycling culture, artistic appropriationism and experimentation. A staunch supporter of non-privatisation and the liberalisation of our historic and imaginary memory and an activist committed to archives as the tool for cultural development. She has exhibited her work at national and international festivals, fairs, events, art centres, museums and galleries and has won numerous awards.

Pilar Monsell (Córdoba, 1979)

Boasting a BA in Audiovisual Communication, a Diploma in Artistic Photography and a Master’s Degree in Creative Documentary, she combines her work as a professional filmmaker with documentary video and film teaching and participation in films by directors such as Eloy Domínguez, Adriana F. Castellanos, Pela del Álamo, Juan Álvarez Neme, Tamara Cubas, Alberto Fasulo and Adriana F. Castellanos. In 2014, she co-founded the Reversible Laboratory in Barcelona, a collective project devoted to analogue film creation and experimentation. Since 2016, she has worked as a documentary film mentor at the Madrid Film School – ECAM. Her first feature film, Distances, won the Audience Award at the 49th Festival dei Popoli 2008 (Florence). In 2009, she joined the Laboratory of Documentary Creation run by the Play Doc festival. In 2012, she made the short film, Pan, Trabajo y Libertad (Bread, Work and Freedom) and she participated in the 100jours collective French cinema project, directing the short film, + 46. In 2013, she won the Manuel Cintra Ferreira Fellowship from the Doc’s Kingdom International Documentary Film Seminar 2013. Her first feature film, Africa 815, was premiered at Doc Lisboa 2014. She is currently working on the post-production of her short film, Dos sueños después (Two Dreams Later), and is developing the feature film, Nisaiyat and the exhibition project, Cuidadoras de patios: lo íntimo-público (Patio Keepers: the intimate-public).

Omar A. Razzak (Madrid, 1982)

The Canarian director of Syrian origin trained in Madrid, Paris and Montreal, works in film and enjoys it from several of its sides. Sometimes he produces films (Stockholm, 2014, Rodrigo Sorogoyen) and sometimes he edits them (La Selva Inflada (The Inflated Jungle), 2015, Alejandro Naranjo). Paradisewas the first film he directed and it was followed by La Tempestad Calmada (The Calm Tempest), which were both well received by critics and the public.